Are you surprised to learn that in 2018, self-care apps topped Apple’s trends list? Consumers spent more than $32M US on mindfulness apps like Calm, Headspace and 10% Happier. This year, Pinterest’s top 100 trends for 2019 indicates that the search for sleep apps has increased by 116%.

So, are apps the answer to better self-care?

According to writer Nicole Spector, wellness trends are about owning self-care. What she means is that the trends are less about gadgets and more about putting in the time.

It doesn’t appear that self-care apps are going to disappear anytime soon so when I saw that the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) collaborated to create an assessment framework for mental health apps, I took a closer look.

According to the MHCC and CIHR, the number of mental health apps is growing every day and determining which ones are reliable and actually work is even harder.